Chapter 19
15 September, 1940 Third Floor Charms Corridor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dorcas anxiously awaited Saturday. She became absolutely fidgety when she received a reply from Harriet Finnigan confirming their meeting at one o'clock Saturday afternoon. She'd almost blundered when Cal saw her in the courtyard scanning the letter. She was so edgy with anticipation and also restive in the fact that she didn't know what Tom's plan had been, or even if it was possible for her to get to London.
Cal asked her what she was reading. As he'd been the one to help her initially seek out information on Wingate Institution, even obtaining Ms. Finnigan's address, she wanted to tell him about her upcoming meeting with the author. But she stopped short when she realized that this would mean explaining how she meant to get to the meeting. Even if she knew how she would travel to London, she felt certain that Cal would disapprove of a scheme to leave the school without permission.
So, she confided in no one except Tom.
Clutching Harriet's response and the original letter inside the Wingate book in her hand she came to the classroom at the very end of the corridor. Dorcas peeked into the darkened room, unsure if she was in the right place. How could an abandoned classroom at the end of an empty corridor be part of the plan to sneak away to London? Was there another secret passage into Hogsmeade from here?
She looked back down the corridor she'd just traversed. She was alone.
About to turn back, Dorcas stopped when she heard Tom's voice from within her own mind.
"Birdie, stop hovering in the doorway. Someone will see you."
She needed no further prompting, she stepped into the classroom and saw Tom standing in a corner next to a very large and ornate cabinet.
"So, now are you going to let me in on the plan? How are we going to get to London?"
Tom adopted that casual air that infuriated Dorcas. It was a nonchalance that suggested that everyone else had to work twice as hard to be a fraction as brilliant as he was.
"This is the plan," he said, gesturing to the cabinet.
Dorcas studied it, stepping close and placing a hand against the polished wood.
"How does it work?" Dorcas asked. She knew not to doubt any object in Hogwarts that appeared innocuous. If Tom said it would get them to London, it probably would.
"It's got a twin in a shop in London. All we need to do is step into it," he explained while twisting the handle and opening the cabinet.
Dorcas peered inside and then looked back at Tom.
"Is it safe?"
Tom looked affronted. "Birdie, would I put you in danger?"
Dorcas knew her face looked skeptical. Tom laughed.
"Let's go before someone catches us in here. Do you have the address?" he asked, taking her arm and helping her to climb into the cabinet.
"Yes," Dorcas said, pulling the book with the letters out of her pocket to show him.
Tom stepped into the cabinet, filling the remaining space and closed the door carefully.
The sensation of being pulled backwards quickly was jarring and unexpected. Dorcas reflexively reached out and found Tom's arm. She grasped it tightly in both of her hands, afraid that if she let go, they would be separated.
She clenched her teeth, fearing that if she opened her mouth she would scream. When the effort to keep a cry of terror from escaping her became almost too much to maintain, the falling backwards sensation stopped.
A breath next to Dorcas's ear reassured her that she hadn't lost Tom. As if sensing that her nerves needed soothing, his hand found hers squeezing his arm and he patted it.
"Stay quiet," he instructed, so close to her that she felt his lips brush her ear.
She nodded.
They stood in the cabinet for a moment longer, listening to the sounds beyond the door. Tom cracked the cabinet open only a miniscule amount.
She strained her ears for sounds. She couldn't hear much, just one set of footsteps that shuffled a little when their owner walked. They sounded as if they were moving away from the spot where Dorcas and Tom were concealed.
Dorcas looked to Tom. She couldn't see much of him in the darkness of the enclosed space. But she could see a sliver of light cut down his face as he checked the space beyond.
Tom announced the way was clear for their exit with a nod of his head. He pried Dorcas's fingers from her vice grip on his arm and held them in his hand. Dorcas recalled a memory of the last time he'd held onto her like that. It was in the Underground as they waited for the air raid sirens to cease their wailing. She remembered the sensation of losing a limb when he'd released her hand and walked away from her.
She allowed herself a moment to close her eyes and appreciate the feeling of being whole again with her hand grasping his.
Her eyes snapped open when Tom yanked her out of the cabinet behind him and out of the shop door. She blinked and tried to gain her bearings. Looking behind her at the shop, she surveyed the eeriest assortment of items for sale.
There was a cape with bloodstains on a mannequin, a purple tophat resting where the head should be. Five skulls were arranged on a display table in a pyramid. And several masks glared down at her from the walls.
"Where are we?" Dorcas asked, drawing closer to Tom instinctively.
"Knockturn Alley," he answered, pulling her along the pavement.
They rounded a corner and the view became a little more familiar. As they stepped into a sunny and more broad avenue, she recognized many of the shops where she'd purchased school supplies the previous year. They were in Diagon Alley.
"Tom," Dorcas breathed, stunned by the journey they'd just made, hardly daring to believe it had happened. "That was brilliant."
He smiled and winked, squeezing her hand slightly in silent reply. They kept walking until they reached The Leaky Cauldron. Dorcas knew that Muggle London lay just beyond the pub.
"From here, it's Muggle means to get to your meeting," Tom explained. He led her out of the pub and into the Underground station across Charing Cross.
Tom paid their fair and they easily blended into the throng of people on the platform hurrying to all sorts of city destinations. Stepping into a tube car with a Euston Square stop, they found seats near the back. Dorcas felt conspicuous. She pulled on the plait that hung down her left shoulder and stared at the people in the car with them. She pulled out the book and the letters for something to do. Placing the book in her lap, she opened the latest letter from Harriet.
"What if we're recognized?" As she whispered this to Tom, one middle aged man looked directly at her. She caught his eye but quickly looked away. When she returned her gaze to him he was still looking at her.
"Stop looking like a scared little girl and people will quit staring," he whispered back. He took her book and began casually flipping through it to demonstrate.
Dorcas was nettled. "I'm not a little girl," she argued. "I just had a birthday on Wednesday." As if that made her point for her.
"Well, happy birthday," Tom returned in whispered argument. "Stare at the ground if you can't stop looking so panicked."
Dorcas did look at her own feet for the rest of the tube trip. She wished that she could have Tom's confidence. She supposed it came with years of traveling around the city on his own, blending in, affecting that air of belonging in places that he didn't.
They sat in silence for four stops. Tom reading, Dorcas studying her shoes. The staring man got off and she felt she could breathe a little easier.
"This is us, Birdie," Tom said finally, closing the book and tucking it into his jacket pocket. He took Dorcas's hand again and joined a cue of passengers waiting to disembark.
On street level again, Dorcas felt her anticipation at meeting Ms. Finnigan replace her fear of being caught. They walked a few blocks to Warren Street and came to stand before a row of narrow townhouses. They looked old and a little shabby, but nicer than the buildings in Dorcas's own neighborhood. This was definitely not the East End.
She checked the address on the envelope that she took from her pocket.
"Have a good meeting, Birdie," Tom said, releasing her hand. Her nerves were returning.
"You're not coming with me?" she asked. She remembered distinctly arguing that she was not a little girl and inwardly cringed that she sounded like one now.
"No," Tom said, scuffing the heel of his shoe along the pavement. "I've got things to do as well. I'll meet you back here in an hour."
Dorcas nodded and turned to the red door of Harriet Finnigan's residence. She knocked and took a deep breath.
:::
Dorcas sat on a green and white chintz couch with a teacup and saucer perched on her knees. As she surveyed the home of Harriet Finnigan she surmised that the woman must live an interesting life.
Every available surface of the tiny sitting room had books piled on books. There was a desk in one corner with a typewriter and stacks of files. Dorcas guessed this was where she must have written the Wingate book.
Pictures lined the walls. The closest photographs that Dorcas could see all looked to have been taken in exotic places. One picture had her waving in front of the massive mudbrick Djenne Mosque in Mali with two men and a woman. Another photograph was below that with Harriet and the players of a Quidditch team, all holding broomsticks and wearing green robes, atop a great stone wall-The Great Wall, she guessed. The final photograph that Dorcas could view from where she sat was of Harriet alone in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
"I am surprised, I must confess," Harriet said, pouring herself a cup of tea. "I didn't expect you to be quite so young."
Dorcas didn't know how to respond to this observation and so sipped her tea instead.
"I've read your book several times," Dorcas finally said, eager to steer the conversation toward Wingate.
"You may be the only one," Harriet said with a smile. "Where did you come across it, again?"
"A little bookstore on the high street in Hogsmeade," Dorcas answered. "My mother told me that is where my uncle spent about a year and so I'd started researching it."
Harriet nodded, taking in the information and sipping her tea. She was about the same age as Dorcas's mother, she guessed, with auburn hair that was pinned up with tortoiseshell combs. She wore gray trousers and a green blouse with a bow at the neck. She had sharp eyes that Dorcas imagined were like a hawk's. She suspected that, as a journalist, she ought to be very good at observing the details of her surroundings.
"I'm curious about your uncle," Harriet said, lifting her cup to her lips again. "I may have met him while I was investigating the hospital. What is his name?"
"Mortimer Rackharrow. Morty," Dorcas said.
"Rackharrow?" Harriet repeated, her eyebrows raised slightly.
Dorcas was not at all surprised that she knew the name. Her uncle Lysander was on the boards of St. Mungo's and Hogwarts and held a hereditary seat in the Wizengamot.
"Yes," Dorcas confirmed.
"So are you Lysander's daughter? Or Mary-Ellen's?"
Dorcas was surprised that her mother's name would come up. She did not think of her mother as attached to the Rackharrow name or of the pureblood circles of the Wizarding community. She'd been successfully detached from that life for as long as Dorcas had been alive.
'Mary-Ellen's," Dorcas replied. "Do you know my mother?"
Harriet nodded. "I went to school with your mother and father."
Dorcas received a secondary shock. Harriet Finnigan knew her mother and father at school. She was tempted to ask more, but remembered that she didn't have too long to linger here. She and Tom would need to get back to Hogwarts before they were missed.
"I was hoping you could tell me a little of what they did to the patients at Wingate," Dorcas redirected.
Harriet nodded and set her teacup down. Dorcas followed her.
"Have you heard of the Unforgivable Curses?" Harriet asked.
Dorcas nodded and shifted to the edge of her seat. "They're in my Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook," she responded.
"Right you are," Harriet smiled encouragingly. "You know that they work by taking over the nervous system, the brain?"
"Yes," Dorcas answered. "The Imperius Curse allows the caster to rewire the brain's impulses, giving control of the body over. The Cruciatus Curse is a variation on the Imperius. It tricks the brain to signal the body's nerve endings and create unyielding pain. The Killing Curse shuts down all of the brain's impulses completely." Dorcas thought about the book she'd read in Blackpool's library over the summer about Urquhart Rackharrow, the founder of the curses. But she decided to leave him out of her recitation.
Dorcas thought about these curses and shuddered to think these were the incantations that the hospital had touted as "cures".
"How did the hospital use the spells?" Dorcas's eyebrows creased with confusion.
"There were healers who had become convinced that a Squib child could be terrified into exhibiting magic. They just needed to have the proper motivation in order to access the innate magic inside of them," Harriet explained.
"How could the curses help?"
"Imagine," Harriet began, tucking some stray hairs behind her ear as she reached for a shoebox full of photographs. "A healer using the Imperius Curse to control your body as they forced you to hold your own head under water, threatening to drown you unless you threw them off with magic. Or having the Cruciatus Curse used on you or a friend until you could defend yourself with a spell."
Dorcas's eyes were wide with horror.
"The Unforgivable Curses are part of a group of spells known as Compulsory Operational Curses," Harriet continued. "They can damage the nervous system. They have caused hundreds of people to live lives like your Uncle Morty lives."
Dorcas remembered her mother saying that repeated use of these kinds of spells was like gouging grooves into a record. The original melodies recorded there were permanently damaged as a result.
Dorcas swallowed around a lump that had formed in her throat.
"Why did the hospital burn down in 1926?" Dorcas asked in a hoarse whisper.
Harriet blanched and flipped through some of the photographs that she'd pulled from the box. She handed Dorcas the photo that was published in the book. The one where Wingate was engulfed in flames.
"Some people found out about how Wingate was treating its patients. Some people didn't care what became of their children in that place, I suppose. But the Ministry had coerced some parents to send their Squib children. The Magical Welfare Office sent letters to families of Squib children and mandated that they send them there for treatment." She looked down at some of the other photos she held. "I wrote a piece that was published independently and it gained some attention from concerned parents. It also gained attention from the Ministry."
She handed Dorcas some of the photos she held. Dorcas looked at each one in turn. One was the photo in the book of the staff of healers and nurses standing in front of the hospital waving. Three others were pictures that had not been published. They were pictures of angry protesters with signs, clearly yelling while they marched on the lawn, the hospital looming in the background.
"One of the protests turned violent, the healers became nervous that the hospital would be overrun and so they started burning patient files." She looked down at her hands, clearly guilty for her part in the disaster. "The fire got out of control. Seven healers and four children died."
Dorcas gasped.
She looked down at the hospital burning on the sepia colored photo paper laying on the coffee table in front of her.
"The Ministry does not want their involvement in the hospital to be analyzed too closely," Harriet said finally. "That's why my book is lacking in some vital details."
Dorcas understood. The Ministry forced children into the hospital for treatment that turned out to be torture becuase it did not want nonmagical members polluting the gene pool.
"Not unlike Hitler's plans for people who are different," Dorcas said as she thought out loud.
Harriet nodded in agreement. "He'll be stopped." She fixed Dorcas with a stern and determined look.
"How can you be sure?" Dorcas asked. Maybe at one time she'd been optimistic about Britain standing up to Germany. But that was before France fell and the army had retreated from the continent. "The Muggle army left the continent at Dunkirk. The magical people don't want anything to do with the war. And now it's on our doorstep."
"Dunkirk was not a retreat," Harriet objected. "It was a regrouping. And as for the magical people, why do you think the waters were so calm during the evacuation? Where do you think the fog rolled in from? Do you think that those weather conditions just appeared out of nowhere?"
Dorcas didn't know how to respond to that. She desperately wanted to believe that the British Wizarding community was not sitting idly by while the continent was overrun by fascist armies.
"I know," Harriet continued, prompted by Dorcas's stunned silence. "I was there. I reported on it. I'm going back in a couple of weeks."
"Is it really dangerous? Reporting from the continent?" Dorcas admired Harriet and was inspired by her work.
"It can be," Harriet conceded. "But I'm with a whole network of magical and Muggle professionals who know what they're doing."
"Thank you for sharing these with me," Dorcas said, handing the photos back to Harriet. "I hope that you have a successful trip, Ms. Finnigan."
She stood and held her hand out to Harriet.
Harriet stood too and took Dorcas's hand. "Please, call me Hattie. I'm so glad that I got to meet you. You're equal parts Mary-Ellen and Corbin, I can see it."
Dorcas brightened. She'd never been compared to her father. She didn't know many people who had known him.
"Please write to me when you return," Dorcas added as Hattie walked her to the door.
"I will, indeed," Hattie answered. "I'll tell you all about my trip."
:::
25 January, 1958 Janus Thickey Ward for Long-Term Spell Damage, Saint Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
Dorcas tried to shake off the funny feeling she had. The smell of disinfectant was making her head foggy. She looked at the orderly directing a mop to clean the floors just beyond the doors of the Long-Term Spell Damage Ward. She supposed the witch was just doing her job, but Dorcas was impatient for her to move along down the hall. If the smell was bothering her, she reasoned, then it was probably bothering the patients more.
She swiped a hand across her forehead, which felt clammy. It was mid-January and there was snow on the ground. She wondered at the feeling of being overheated. It could be influenza. In that case, she ought to take precautions around her patients. She removed a medical mask from the pocket of her lime green robes and tied it around her face, covering her nose and mouth.
She came to the bedside of Gus Hawkins and reviewed his chart.
"How are you feeling today, Mr. Hawkins?" she asked.
He looked a little hollow around the eyes like he'd had his sleep interrupted.
He shrugged. "Not bad."
"Have you slept at all?" Dorcas looked over her colleague's notes. Healer Crawford had written that the patient was having bad dreams for the past three nights.
"Very little," he said, playing with the corner of the sheet on his bed.
"Healer Crawford mentioned the dreams you've been having. Do you want to tell me about them?"
Gus looked down at his hands as he fidgeted. He shook his head.
"Would you like to take a walk?"
At this, Gus brightened and nodded. Dorcas helped him out of bed and bent to place his slippers on his feet. She stood a little too quickly and felt lightheaded for a moment. She leaned with her hand on the bed beside Gus to steady herself.
"Are you feeling alright, Healer Meadowes?" Gus asked.
"Yes," Dorcas said, embarrassed. "It's probably just a touch of the flu."
"You need some Pepperup Potion," Gus said.
Dorcas smiled under her mask. The patient prescribing the doctor a healing tonic. "That's very good advice, Mr. Hawkins. I'll take some as soon as we finish our walk."
Gus was walking with better balance. He did not need Dorcas's support to get to the tea shop at all. He was also stumbling over his words far less often than he had last week.
"Did you have any visitors this week?" Dorcas prompted.
"Just Elizabeth," Gus answered, holding the door to the shop open for Dorcas.
Dorcas knew that Gus's wife Elizabeth visited most days.
"She told me some stories about when we were young. I remembered all of the people she talked about," Gus looked at her and smiled, proud of his progress.
He had every right to be proud. He was in a gloomy place for a couple of months because his progress had stagnated for a little while. But some watershed moment had triggered a flurry of memory recovery in the last week or so.
They sat at a table in the corner and ordered.
"Gus," Dorcas ventured, when the waitress had dropped off the tea. "I wonder if you could tell me about the dreams you're having. Only, I think they might be more than dreams. I think they might be memories."
Gus nodded and blew on his tea before taking a sip.
"I dream about being on my rounds at the Ministry and a pair of glowing eyes in an alleyway. There was a dead body. And then I can't remember anything after that," Gus's hand on his teacup shook. He noticed the way the cup clattered against the saucer and placed his hands in his lap under the table in order to conceal the tremor.
Dorcas paused a moment in order to give Gus time to compose himself.
"Is it always the same images? You on your rounds, the glowing eyes, the dead body, and then nothing?"
"Yes, it's always the same," Gus answered in a strained whisper.
Dorcas knew from his file and from the numerous conversations that she had with Gus that he was a night watchman at the Ministry of Magic. She knew that he'd been stunned by his own Stunning Spell as it backfired from his damaged wand. She knew that he was found at the scene of a murder outside of the Ministry. He had been unresponsive for several minutes and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Dorcas walked with Gus back to the Long-Term Spell Damage Ward. When she'd seen him safely into his bed once more and ordered a Sleeping Draught for him, she stopped to make a note in his file.
Memory therapy one week from today. It was little more than a hunch, but Dorcas suspected that the recurring nightmare he was having was connected to his accident back in early October.
She closed the file and turned to leave the ward for her office. Her fingertips went numb for a moment and the file slipped from her hands onto the floor. Dorcas cursed under her breath and became annoyed at this peculiar day she'd been having. Stooping to pick up the papers scattered there, her vision became black with little pinpricks of silver light. The last thing she remembered was losing her balance and falling.
:::
When Dorcas opened her eyes, she expected to be on the floor of the Long-Term Spell Damage Ward. It only seemed like she'd blanked for a moment. But when she opened her eyes, she realized she was in a bed in an entirely different part of the hospital.
Dorcas couldn't identify what floor she was on or what ward she was in. She knew it wasn't the Janus Thickey Ward any longer because the din of patients babbling to themselves was absent here. This place, wherever here may be, was quieter.
She looked around. Screens blocked her view of the rest of the floor. She could only see her bed. Peering under the sheet that covered her, she saw that her hospital robes and wool suit had been removed. A hospital gown replaced them. Dorcas shook her head. This was an overreaction to her lightheadedness and loss of balance earlier. Leave it to healers to jump to the most dramatic conclusions.
She threw the sheet off of her feet, determined to find the nearest nurse to bring her clothes. She knew she probably shouldn't finish her shift, but she could have a lie down at home and not have to take up a hospital bed.
"I knew you would try to escape. Back in bed, Clerey," Cal ordered, coming around the screen and catching her escape before her feet hit the floor.
"I'm fine, Cal. This fuss is all unnecessary," Dorcas said impatiently, ignoring him.
"Doctors really do make the worst patients." He tossed her file on the bed and pulled the covers back, tucking her in insistently.
Dorcas grabbed the file from the foot of the bed and flipped through it. "It's just the flu."
Her husband furrowed his brow. "I hope you're better at reading patient charts than that, Dr. Meadowes," he chided.
Dorcas blinked up at him in confusion.
"Congratulations! We're having a baby," he said, sitting beside her on the bed. His voice sounded joyful, but his expression belied anxiety.
She looked at the chart again and read the results for herself.
She felt a sensation of floating as if her chest was filled with helium and she could rise straight up into the air. "We're having a baby!" Her joy fully translated in her expression as she threw the chart to the foot of the bed again and reached for Cal. She kissed him enthusiastically, tossing caution aside. This was not professional behavior, but that was what the screen was there for.
Cal took her hands, untangling her fingers from behind his neck and folded them up in his own, kissing her knuckles before becoming a serious medical professional once more.
"What were you doing before you fainted?"
Dorcas shrugged, impatient with the questioning already. She wanted to think about nurseries and names instead.
"I was with a patient. We went for a walk, had tea, talked."
"Did you notice anything out of the ordinary? You said you thought it was the flu?"
Dorcas pushed the many baby-related thoughts from her mind for now and concentrated on the moments before she passed out in the middle of the ward.
"I felt clammy and a bit warm, I remember that the floor cleaner that was used on the floor bothered me; made me feel ill." She paused. She'd just tucked Gus back into bed. She was writing in his patient file. "My fingertips lost feeling and I dropped my patient's file."
Cal examined her hands as they rested in his. He removed his wand from his pocket and pricked her index finger. "Can you feel that?"
"Yes," Dorcas answered, pulling her hand back a little in reflex.
"But you couldn't grasp the papers?"
Dorcas thought about the sensation of losing control of her fingers for a moment. "No. And when I bent to pick the papers up, I saw stars and woke up here."
"I think we should do more tests, Dorcas," Cal said, his face a cautious mask. "Rule out anything vascular or neurological."
Dorcas shook her head. "I'm perfectly fine, Cal. Don't make a fuss. This happened once or twice before with Ryann and with Wren."
"Yes," Cal argued. "I remember perfectly. But you never complained about numbness in your extremities before."
"Just my fingers. It was really nothing."
Cal seemed to want to force the issue. But as he knew his wife too well to argue, he compromised. "I won't order any tests if you agree to come home with me now and get right into bed."
Dorcas chewed on her lip. "Cal, I have a shift to finish and-"
Cal cut her off succinctly. "Absolutely not. You go home now and rest, or I run tests and keep you here overnight."
Dorcas's eyes grew wide at his ultimatum.
"Fine," she said, defeated. But, she reminded herself, she was going to have another baby. She smiled and lay back on her pillows.
"I'll get your clothes. Don't move," Cal said sternly, standing and disappearing behind the screen.
:::
15 September, 1940 Warren Street, London
Dorcas saw Tom sitting on a bench across the street from Hattie's townhouse. She crossed the street as he stood and handed her a folded newspaper.
"Happy Birthday," he said.
"What's this?" Dorcas asked, confused.
"Read it. Page nine," he said simply. He put his hands in his pockets and waited for her to flip to the right page.
Dorcas noticed that the paper was from 1926. She found page nine. The very same picture of the Wingate Institution going up in flames greeted her in newsprint. The only difference between this photograph and the original she'd just seen in Hattie's sitting room was that the flames and the people were stationary here on the newspaper page. This was a Muggle newspaper.
"Where did you find this?" Dorcas asked in astonishment. She gaped at Tom.
"I went to the library," Tom answered. He pulled Dorcas's copy of Hattie's book from his jacket pocket. "I read that it was disguised as a Muggle school. I figured someone would have reported on the fire."
"I don't think you're supposed to take these," Dorcas said dubiously.
Tom shrugged.
"Take a look at the caption," he prompted.
Dorcas looked closer. "It's in Birmingham."
"Yes," Tom confirmed. "So what did you find out?"
Dorcas told him about Hattie and the fascinating life she led. She told him about the Unforgivable Curses, the protests, and the circumstances of the fire."
"Seems like a productive trip," he said, nodding.
They descended into the Underground and boarded a tube car back to Charing Cross.
Dorcas scanned the paper avidly as they rode.
"I've missed this, Birdie," Tom said suddenly.
"Missed what?" Dorcas asked, not taking her eyes off of the paper.
Tom placed a hand over hers and lowered the paper in order to look at her. Dorcas stared back questioningly.
"I've missed spending time with you. I mean spending time with you outside of the library studying," he continued, talking fast.
"You mean, spending time alone sneaking about breaking rules?" Dorcas clarified.
"Yes," Tom said. "I wish it could be like last year before your accident. I know you're afraid that something will happen again. But look," he gestured around at the tube car thundering through tunnels under the city. "I've gotten you all the way to London without a scratch on you."
"But what's the point? You only asked me to go around with you so that I could teach you what I can do. But I couldn't teach you."
"That's not true. Besides, I can sometimes pick up what people are thinking now and then."
Now Dorcas was truly intrigued. "You didn't tell me you'd figured it out!"
"I first heard someone in the Underground that one day we were down there for the air raid drill," he explained.
"That's incredible, Tom!"
"Yeah, but I need a lot of practice." He hurried on. "But that's not why I miss you, Birdie. I just want to be with my friend. You're really the only one I've got."
Dorcas felt a stirring of compassion for him. She hadn't realized how alone he'd been. She stared at him. He returned her stare. There was a pleading in his look that compelled Dorcas. She really didn't know anyone else who could move her emotions like he could.
"Okay," she conceded.
Tom's expression changed to one of relief. How would he have reacted if she'd said she couldn't resume their capering about the school at night?
"Will you meet me tonight?" he asked eagerly.
It was Saturday and the start of term. Dorcas had finished all of her homework and had no fixed plans for tomorrow. She could manage another nighttime jaunt with Tom.
She realized that she missed Tom and their clandestine meetings just as much as he had. "Peter and Wendy, off on another adventure!"
A handsome smile lighted Tom's features. "Brilliant!"
:::
Dorcas peered through the dirty shop window, past the bloody cloak. She and Tom were waiting for the right moment to enter Borgin and Burkes. Tom explained that getting back through the cabinet would be tricky because one of the two store owners were always watching their customers for thievery.
"Why would anyone want to steal this junk?" Dorcas asked, looking at the glass eye on display.
"Well, most of it probably is junk. But that Vanishing Cabinet is pretty rare. There's a few other things in there that someone might want to nick." Tom turned to her. "Birdie, you go in first and make your way to the cabinet. Be casual. You're just browsing. Then I'll come in and distract him," he jerked his head in the direction of the store attendant. "You get in the cabinet and go back to Hogwarts. Got it?"
Dorcas shook her head. "What will you do? I don't want to go back alone. What if I get lost?"
Tom placed a reassuring hand on her arm. "You can't get lost. The cabinets are linked. You can only go to Hogwarts from here. I'll be right behind you."
"Okay," Dorcas said, feeling apprehensive. She pushed the door open and a bell tinkled to announce her entrance. She immediately turned left and began to peruse a display of necklaces that a small placard claimed had curses on them.
There was a jade and silver pendant on a delicate chain, a gold locket with an ornate S carved into it, and a black onyx choker.
She moved on, surveying a music box with an organ grinder's monkey on it. She wondered what sort of nefarious magic was concealed in it. The monkey's black beaded eyes stared at her.
Dorcas heard the bell tinkle but didn't look up. She listened to Tom talking to the man behind the case of signet rings.
She walked closer to the cabinet and glanced over her shoulder. Tom pointed to a ring under the glass and asked questions that Dorcas couldn't hear. The shopkeeper bent to retrieve the ring he was pointing to. Tom quickly looked in her direction and nodded.
She stepped into the cabinet and closed the door. She was instantly pulled backwards. Her teeth chattered as she was buffeted by wind. The darkness was all consuming.
Then she was on her own feet again and standing once more in the black space. She cracked the cabinet's door to make sure that the classroom was empty before she stepped out. Her legs buckled as she stepped into the classroom and came down hard on her knees.
Dorcas stood quickly and rushed to close the cabinet immediately. She couldn't take her eyes off of the handle, she willed it to twist open and reveal Tom inside. She waited. The cabinet's handle didn't move. She wondered if she should go back and help him, or leave the classroom before she was spotted.
The cabinet opened at last and Tom stepped out. Dorcas hadn't realized that she'd been holding her breath.
:::
15-16 September, 1940 Secret Room, Seventh Floor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Tom's breaths became shallow and even, the rise and fall of his chest beneath Dorcas's cheek became a pleasant rhythm; his arm wrapped around her a reassuring weight.
Dorcas held A Thousand and One Nights open and read aloud. They were in Tom's hidden den of cast off furnishings in the secret room he'd first shown her last Christmas. After three stories, she closed the book.
She wondered something and spoke it aloud.
"Tom?"
She couldn't see his face, but she could sense that he was smiling.
"Yes?"
"Why didn't you tell me that you'd heard someone's thoughts during the summer?"
There was silence.
"It was hardly the time to discuss such a thing while we were huddled below the city streets braced for a bombing," he said.
"I know," Dorcas replied. "But we wrote to each other over the summer."
"Yes, but I'm not going to put something like that in a letter. I swore to you that I would keep your secret. Anyone can open a letter and read it."
Dorcas agreed with the logic of it. She wondered at the paranoia of assuming that every letter you write will be seen by eyes other than that of the intended reader. But, she supposed, she would probably also develop traits like paranoia and suspicion if she grew up in an orphanage like Tom had.
"I'm not keeping secrets from you, Birdie. I told you at the first opportunity. And besides, it was just one time and so quick that I thought I'd imagined it."
Dorcas reached over Tom and placed the book next to the paper Tom had swiped from the library in London. She'd read the story of the fire at the school in Birmingham at least three times that afternoon.
She drew her hand back from the paper and rested it on Tom's torso, fiddling with a button on his shirt.
"What did you hear?"
"That man that was pacing back and forth at the foot of the stairs," he described. His fingers at her shoulder played with the end of her plait.
Dorcas nodded, prompting him to go on. She remembered him because he looked a little too well dressed for the area of town he was in.
"He was praying," Tom said. "He was praying that-" then he stopped and laughed a little. "I shouldn't finish it. It would scandalize you."
Now Dorcas was intrigued. "You have to finish, now that you've started it!"
"Okay," Tom said, "He was making a bargain with God that he'd stop visiting his favorite girl in the East End and go home to his wife if God would spare him."
"Oh," Dorcas blushed, but was thankful that Tom could only see the top of her head from where he lay.
She thought back to that day they'd met at the record store. She could picture the man in the Underground clearly. She usually didn't have to work hard to hear thoughts if people were projecting them.
"I wonder why I didn't hear him."
She felt Tom shrug the arm that was wrapped around her.
"You were trying to calm your uncle down. You started singing."
She nodded as she remembered the scene in her mind. That was one of the most terrifying moments she could recall in her life. She shuddered involuntarily as she looked back on the memory.
"Are you cold, Birdie?" Tom asked, pulling a blanket over her before she could respond.
They spent a while in languorous silence before Tom's rhythmic breaths lulled Dorcas to sleep.
:::
Dorcas woke and sat up. The secret room must also provide ambient light in the daytime. She looked around for the light's source but didn't see one. She flexed the fingers of her left hand. They were numb because she'd fallen asleep laying on her arm.
She looked at Tom as he slept next to her. Dorcas was reminded of how the Grey Lady had described Tom in their conversation late last year. She'd called him the "beautiful Slytherin boy." Dorcas was inclined to agree with her.
His hair fell in dark waves over his forehead and his long eyelashes swept his cheeks delicately as he slept. He had high cheekbones that would have been described as severe on a less handsome face. His cheeks were losing some of that roundness of childhood, hollowing out a little as he became older. His jawline was also losing the softness of youth, becoming sharper.
Dorcas was compelled to touch him. She swept his hair back from his forehead, careful to keep her touch light. The faintest brush of her hand startled him and his eyes opened, flashing alarmingly.
He sat up and grabbed her hand, squeezing hard.
"I'm sorry," Dorcas said, inhaling as the pain in her hand sharpened.
Tom's eyes focused on her. As they did, they softened and he exhaled. "No, I'm sorry," he said, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it. "Did I hurt you? I didn't mean to."
Dorcas shook her head, pulling her hand away and rubbing her fingers.
"Yes, I did," he argued, there was sympathy in his voice. "Let me see."
He took her hand and examined it. Rubbing her fingers between his own he apologized again. "You startled me. I try not to sleep when I'm around people because-"
Dorcas nodded and finished for him, "at the orphanage that's when you're most vulnerable. I know. I wasn't thinking."
She felt a strong urge to comfort him, to let him know that she was not angry with him, so she leaned forward wrapped her arms around him
He relaxed a little in her embrace. Eventually, she felt his arms wrap around her as well. From the corner of her eye she caught sight of a picture in black and white of a familiar face. She was staring at the newspaper that Tom had given her where it rested next to his leg, half obscured by the book she'd been reading aloud to him. Tom's picture stared up at her from the page.
"Tom," she gasped.
He released her. "What is it?" He pulled back and studied her at arm's length, believing that he'd hurt her again.
She pulled the paper over and spread it on their laps between them.
The small photograph on page eleven was Tom, but different at the same time. She'd never seen him wear such aristocratic clothing before. And he looked somehow twenty years older.
"Look at the caption," Dorcas said, but it came out in a constricted whisper.
"Tom Riddle, missing for ten months reunited with Little Hangleton family," Tom read, his brow creased in confusion.
"How can that be you, Tom?" Dorcas asked, finally finding her voice.
Tom was shaking his head and reading the small two paragraph story that accompanied the picture. "That's not me."
A/N: Reviews are welcome and appreciated
